Seeing America

by Nancy Crocker

  That afternoon, we got close enough to Denver that the foothills of the mountains, nothing more than overgrown bluffs, blocked the view of the range behind them. I tried to explain to Paul how strange it was, having the giants disappear behind the pretenders. I drove up steeper and steeper hills all the time, and I kept thinking each one we crested would make the mountains reappear, but they didn’t.

  The Ford was straining and grunting a little harder with each height, slowing to a crawl before rounding the top and picking up speed on the downhill side. Then came a hill where our crawl ground to a halt, and we stalled two-thirds of the way up. The motor sputtered into silence.

  “Now what?” I said.

  Paul spoke up, still a little thick in the tongue. “Can you back down and take a run at it?”

  “I dunno, Paul. I was goin’ pretty much flat out before we started up this time.”

  “We could get out and push.” Henry sounded like a man on the way to his own hanging.

  It was plenty hot by that time of day.

  “Maybe.” I looked behind us. “Or we could try to and get run over instead.”

  “No way. Don’t chance it,” Paul said. “No way around it, I suppose. North of here? South?”

  I looked around. “Not in this state or the next, from the looks of things.” I realized each possibility we said no to was bringing us closer to ending the trip right here. Right on the wrong side of Denver.

  “Lemme think.” Paul was rubbing his nose like a genie might come out. A man driving a team came up behind and passed us with a curious look but no offer of help. Paul snapped his fingers. “Remember in the manual, John? The ratios of the gears?”

  “Well, I remember reading the manual,” I said.

  “The gear ratio for reverse is lower than that of any of the forward gears. The auto has more pull going backward than it has even in first gear going forward.”

  Even half drunk, he was smarter than me.

  “It’s worth a try,” he said. “Go back down and try backing up the hill.”

  I looked at Henry, and he shrugged.

  It was easy enough getting down the hill, but turning the auto around was a different proposition. Forward and back, forward and back—it was the first time I’d done it, and it did not come as what you might call second nature. Finally I was situated.

  “Ready?” I turned and draped my right arm over the back of the seat. “Get to one side, Paul.”

  He scooted over.

  I opened the throttle and swerved back and forth across the road a few times before I got the hang of steering backward as we started up. Lucky for us, no one was coming in the opposite direction.

  We were at the halfway mark before the car started slowing down.

  “Give it more gas,” Paul called.

  “It’s wide open,” I yelled back.

  The Ford started whining a mechanical version of “I don’t want to,” but it kept going. A little slower, a little farther, slower, slower . . . We passed the point where we’d stalled before, and Henry muttered something.

  The engine was working so hard I found myself counting the cylinders as they fired.

  Henry heard me, then Paul heard him, and we were all chanting, “One-two-three-four,” like a good luck charm.

  Then one cylinder missed, and my heart caught along with it.

  “One-two-three-four,” we begged.

  And it worked. We popped over the crest of the hill and started cheering even as I hurried to throttle down and brake, fighting gravity that was all too willing now to keep us moving.

  Having had the recent practice, I only took half a year to get the Ford turned around this time, and we zipped on, scanning the road ahead. It looked like we’d just climbed the highest of the hills outside Denver. In fact, I could just make out some signs of civilization.

  At the bottom, I stopped and killed the motor.

  “Now what?” Paul said.

  “Pee.” I stepped to the side of the road and unbuttoned.

  Henry climbed out, and we peed in harmony.

  When we buttoned up and turned back to the Model T, Paul was climbing out of the back.

  “Now you’re going? When we’re ready to move on?” Henry said. Another round of musical chairs. This time, the Nagging Nelly verse.

  “I wanna drive.”

  Henry and I laughed, and I saw Paul bristle.

  “Paul, you don’t mean—”

  “Hell I don’t,” he answered me. His chin came up. “It’s my car, isn’t it? We’re not exactly overrun with traffic, are we? No big ditches to run off into? Why the hell not?”

  Neither Henry nor I read anything useful on the other’s face. We shrugged at the same time.

  “Who’s the teacher?” I asked.

  Paul was sitting in the driver’s seat, feeling the locations of levers and pedals.

  “You,” Henry said.

  I gave him a look.

  “No, really. You read the manual with him. You know what to call everything so he’ll understand.” He had a point.

  “All right, but you crank.”

  When the motor sparked, the Ford crept forward a couple inches, like it sometimes did, and the look on Henry’s face indicated it was a good thing he’d just peed. He dove and did a barrel roll out of the way.

  Paul went on adjusting and exploring the controls, unaware.

  Henry stood up and brushed himself off, then hopped in back.

  He was out twice again when Paul killed the engine trying to set out, but then we were flying along. At least that’s how it felt—like we were going twice as fast as usual, even though I knew we were only at half throttle.

  I kept up a running list of instructions. “Little left, not so much, right there, uh-huh, small hill coming, throttle open a little, left, straight, okay, right, throttle back. You’re doing great.”

  Paul wore a smile as wide as if he owned the world.

  I started to let my guard down a little. I’d say left or right, but once he got the hang of the hills, Paul would adjust the throttle and brake when he felt the tilt of the ground. We passed two autos coming our way and my blood pressure went up a little, but Paul held steady. We had one halfway tall hill left, and after that, we should see Denver.

  The car strained enough going up that Paul opened up full throttle. We slowed some, but there was no threat we wouldn’t make it. We came to the crest and—

  “Slow down!”

  We were over the top and picking up speed on the way down.

  “Brake! Throttle! Brake!”

  “Holy shit!” Henry screamed.

  I glanced over to see Paul’s grin about to split his face in two.

  “No, Paul, no! Brake, damn it. Throttle down.” I reached over and closed it myself, but I couldn’t reach the brake. “Left! Left! Left!”

  And then I was bracing myself, and there was a boom and the sound of metal scraping against metal. I hit the front panel hard enough to empty my lungs and make me think I would drown out in the open air. Bedrolls came flying over from the backseat, and I heard Henry’s “Oof!” right after my own.

  Paul had run dead straight into the first tree we’d come close enough to smell in over three hundred miles.

  Henry got his breath back before I did. “What the hell?” he asked over and again. “What the hell, Paul?”

  I was taking inventory. No bones broken, no blood, some places that smarted enough to turn black and blue by tomorrow.

  Paul looked stunned. His face had hit the steering wheel, and blood dripped from his nose off his chin and onto his shirtfront. “What was it?” he said, barely above a whisper.

  Henry leaned over into his ear. “Tree!” he screamed.

  Paul didn’t flinch. “Anybody hurt?”

  “Well, I’m goddamn banged up—I’ll tell you that!” Henry snorted.

  “Not really,” I told him. “You’ve got a bloody nose.”

  “So we didn’t hit anyone else?” Paul asked. “And we’re a
ll okay?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t speak for our goddamn car,” Henry yelped.

  And Paul busted out laughing. Just like that. He reached in his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped blood off his face, ha-ha-ing like he’d just heard a corker. He winced a little when he blew his nose. Then I’ll be goddamned if he didn’t start laughing again.

  “What is wrong with you?” Henry hollered.

  Paul laughed louder. “Well, for one thing, I’m blind!”

  Henry climbed out first and gritted his teeth as he twisted and stretched. I followed suit and found it painful too. We walked around to the front of the Ford together.

  We each got a handhold and pushed the auto away from the trunk of the tree.

  “Axle’s broke,” Henry pronounced. “Not just bent. Broke clean through.”

  “Wheels bent. Tires are history. Headlights too,” I said.

  He nodded. “Fenders might could be straightened out.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think the radiator’s busted. Wouldn’t it be leaking water or steam or something?”

  “Seems like.” Henry looked up toward Paul, still sitting behind the steering wheel, chuckling. “Hey! Mr. It’s My Car! Come look at what you’ve done!”

  “Right away. Soon as I can see.”

  “Goddamn it to hell, Paul, this is serious,” I said. “We got some major damage here.”

  “Glad to meet you, Major Damage. General Mayhem here.”

  Henry stalked around to the driver’s side and jerked Paul by his collar out onto the ground.

  “Hey!” Paul sat up and brushed off his shirt. “What’s that for?”

  “What’s that for?” Henry looked so close to boiling over I stepped closer in case I needed to grab him. “You just about killed us, you’re sitting there laughing like it’s a goddamned joke, and we lost our ride is what that’s for.”

  “But we weren’t killed,” Paul said. His voice was somber. “I’m sorry you were scared. Not seeing what’s coming does protect me from that. As for the car . . .” He shrugged.

  “What?” Henry demanded. “As for the car, what?”

  “It’s not a total loss. We’ll get it fixed. We must be close to Denver, right?”

  “Do you know how long that’ll take?” Henry said.

  Paul shrugged again. “You on a schedule?”

  We walked nearly four miles to the Ford dealer, asking directions along the way. The man there listened to our story, then nodded and told us to wait as he started for a door in the back. I guess he thought again, because he came back and pocketed the key from the lock in his desk drawer. Henry and I exchanged a look.

  The dealer came back with a man who was wiping his greasy hands on a rag.

  “Where’d you leave it?”

  We told him as best we could, and he calculated with his boss without using words. “Meet me around back,” he said and disappeared.

  He was firing up a big steam engine Holt tractor when we found him, and he motioned us to climb on.

  We scrambled for handholds and places to brace our feet when he took off, and the breeze from moving almost made up for adding steam to an already ungodly hot day.

  “Yeah, buddy.” Roy, as his name turned out to be, whistled through his teeth when we got to the auto. He walked all around it and squinted up the hill. “Brake give out on you?” He was looking between the car and the road, like he was trying to picture it happening.

  Paul answered. “No, sir.”

  Roy nodded and guessed, “Flat tire.”

  “No, sir.” Paul again.

  “Throttle stuck?” Roy frowned.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, then, would you mind sayin’ what did happen?”

  Chin up and no apology in his voice, Paul said, “I was driving, sir. And I’m afraid I’d . . . been drinking.”

  Roy’s mouth dropped open. “You were driving.”

  Paul nodded.

  “And you—” A chuckle broke loose.

  Pretty soon we were all laughing. If you could forget the part about how busted up the auto was and how we could have killed somebody, ourselves included, it was pretty damned funny.

  Roy hooked on to both broken halves of the axle with a chain and lifted them to pull the Ford behind the tractor with only the back tires touching the ground. “You might as well sit there where it’s comfortable. Same weight wherever you are.”

  So we rode back to the dealership in the Model T with our noses pointed toward the sun. Paul sat in the driver’s seat with both hands on the steering wheel. Henry and I took to waving at everybody who gawked.

  “Could be five days, could be ten.” That was the dealership owner’s assessment of the situation after he’d met with Roy out back. “Depends on how long it takes the parts to get here.” The shrug of his shoulders said, And I don’t really care.

  I turned to leave.

  “You got any sportin’ women in this town?” Henry asked the man.

  That stopped me.

  The man rested his hairy arms on his desk and clasped his hands together.

  They’d make a hell of a sledgehammer, I thought.

  “Son, I’m a God-fearin’ married man. You don’t want to be askin’ me that.”

  “So am I, sir. So am I.” Henry stood as straight as a broomstick. “Well, not married, no. But God-fearin’, yes. In fact, I’ve been known to do a little preachin’ in my day. I was thinkin’, long as we’re stuck here, I might use my time to turn some hearts toward God and maybe save some souls. My sister . . . was a harlot before she saw the light. It’s kind of a callin’ for me, sir.”

  I very nearly broke into applause.

  Paul had turned his back, and I had no idea if he was amused or appalled.

  The man bowed his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they burned with light. “Well, now, I been told there’s women like that who live in that big brick house west edge of town. I wouldn’t know, mind you.”

  Henry nodded, solemn as all get-out. “I’m sure I can find it, sir. And I thank you. God bless.”

  We were barely outside when he yelled, “Let’s go get us some poontang,” so loud my ear nearest him started to ring.

  “Goddamn it, Henry. Keep it down, would you?”

  “Hell, no!” He skipped ahead of Paul and me and turned to walk backward, facing us. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna keep it down right now!”

  We were in front of a saloon. I grabbed Paul’s arm and walked in, saying, “Let’s go in here and talk about it.”

  Funny thing about alcohol. It can make a fellow get up a harebrained plan about traveling the country and be too proud to back down from it. It can make a blind man think he can drive. Enough of it will even make a fellow wet behind the ears think he’s God’s gift to the women of the world.

  Henry said, “I know why you two’re scared. You ain’t never, have you?”

  Paul just said, “Nope,” like it was no big deal.

  But I was wearing whiskey stilts and felt twice as big as life. “Hell, yes, I have. Plenty of times.”

  Henry loosed his wicked smile. “Well, then, you oughta have a reltney by now.”

  I was glad Paul asked so I didn’t have to. “What’s that?”

  Henry’s smile got even wider. “Why, that’s a hard-on so big it stretches your skin out tight enough you can’t close your eyes.”

  Walking three abreast across town, we banged shoulders so many times I started feeling bruised. It’s a fine line, being drunk enough to do something stupid and still sober enough to walk there to do it.

  A woman my mom’s age opened the door, but I had sure never seen Mom painted up like that. The color of the woman’s hair didn’t look like one God had picked out either.

  “Three dollars apiece,” she said. “Ya got it? If ya don’t, don’t bother trackin’ in on my good rug.”

  Henry reached into my shirt pocket and peeled a five and four ones off the roll. “Yes, ma’am, I do,” he told her, then nodded to P
aul and me. “My treat.”

  She opened the door wider, and we went in.

  It did look like a good rug. All dark reds and blues and greens and so thick I felt each step sinking into it. I was looking all around at the brass light fixtures and polished wood, fancier than any house I’d ever seen, when the woman looked hard at Paul and said, “Wait here.” She pulled back a ruby-colored velvet drape and disappeared into another room.

  She came back with five girls trailing her like ducklings. They were all painted up like Mama, and none of them looked any too happy. I scanned down the line and, in the course of a glance, full-out lost my heart. Fifth in line was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen—hair like gold and a rosebud of a mouth I could taste just by looking at it. She was wearing a blue dress that brought out the color of her eyes and made them sparkle like she was smiling even if she wasn’t. I was ready to propose marriage on the spot.

  “Take your pick,” the woman said and stepped aside.

  Before I could get my tongue untied, Henry guffawed. “Paul, you might as well take the ugliest one, hadn’t ya?”

  And with that, my angel stepped forward and took both of Paul’s hands in hers. “I’ll take you,” she said. My heart broke a little bit as I watched her lead Paul up the stairs by the hand.

  But Henry had paid for all three of us, and I turned to see who might best offer consolation. He had already chosen a black-haired girl by slapping her on the behind, and I wondered if sporting girls ever hauled off and smacked somebody just for acting stupid. I had a feeling I might find out.

  I caught the green eye of a redheaded girl and nodded, feeling my face go hot even as I did. Too bashful to speak to a whore—that was me.

  I followed her up the stairs and could barely take in enough air with her hips swaying in front of me at eye level like that. She went down the hallway to the third door on the left, opened it, and then we were inside and she’d closed it.

  I just stood there and blinked. It seemed like I ought to ask her name or something, but I doubt I could have said ouch if somebody had dropped an anvil on my foot. The right side of her mouth went up in a kind of grin, and she turned her back. I heard water pouring, and then she stood in front of me with a washbowl. I stared at it and back up at her.